Millennial Mobile Mix Report: Android Surge Continues; iPad On the Move

Millennial Media — the largest independent mobile ad network, reaching 63 million U.S. mobile Web users — has published its August Mobile Mix report. The report covers impression activity and trends across its network, encompassing device hardware, operating system software and applications.

Highlights from the latest release include:

– Android OS smartphone impression share climbed 7 percent month over month, capturing 26 percent of the U.S. smartphone OS mix. Only Apple is ahead of Android with 48 percent impression share. Apple OS, however, dropped 7 percent from the July report. The results mark the continuation of Apple’s summer slide, as its July impression share score was lower than June. RIM placed third in this category with 19 percent of smartphone impression share. Surprisingly, its relative share grew by 3 percent from July.

– Zooming out, overall smartphone impression share improved from 48 percent to 51 percent, distancing both feature phones (33 percent) and connected devices (16 percent) and serving as a microcosm of the hastening adoption of smartphones.

– In terms of ad requests, Android also gained ground, surging 39 percent month over month while Apple remained flat. The continued rise now brings Android’s explosive growth in this area to 996 percent since the beginning of 2010.

– Apple’s growth spurt occurred with iPad, where ad requests were up 76 percent from July.

– Among device impressions, Apple still holds a commanding lead at more than 28 percent, with Samsung (15 percent), Motorola (14 percent) and RIM (11 percent) trailing. Apple’s iPhone is the dominant branded device at almost 28 percent, with the Motorola Droid rising to a distant second at nine percent. BlackBerry’s Curve checks in at 6 percent.